ROW80 Update and IWSG February

My Horny Hump Day post is here.

I’ve just finished Chapter 27 of my WIP and am up to about 211,500 words. I think I have one or two more Soviet chapters left, and then I’m moving back to the American storyline. One of the Soviet storylines, that of Inessa and her family, will join up with the American storyline very soon.

I’m taking three grad-level classes this semester, so I don’t have as much unfettered time for writing as I did previously. I’m also going to be contacting my local Armenian Orthodox church to ask about their Armenian lessons for adults. I hope they’ll be happy to teach an odar (non-Armenian). Western Armenian is my strong preference, not Eastern Armenian. I just prefer the softer sounds, and the knowledge that Western Armenian was the version spoken by the people murdered in the Armenian Genocide. I think to date I’ve formally learnt or taught myself bits and pieces of about 12-13 languages.

I also finally bought myself a flash disk drive. My university’s bookstore sells really cute thumb drives in the shape of animals. Mine looks like a tiger. He reminds me of my cute stuffed tiger Roger, who’s a very pale yellow/light brown and in storage with most of my other stuffed animals (and other possessions) in my basically-now-official ex’s parents’ basement. He’s one of seven stuffed animals named after members of my favorite bands. (Side note: Roger’s namesake really needs to start acting his age and button up his damn shirt! He’s 68!)

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group meets the first Wednesday of every month.

I submitted Jakob’s story to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest, and went with my gut instincts and classified it as General Fiction, not Young Adult. Now that it’s been done for awhile, I’ve had enough distance to realize that it really does read more like a regular adult novel that happens to have a younger protagonist. The Jaap of Parts I and II is clearly a teenage boy, but after his dramatic escape and resulting injury at the close of Part II, it’s like he’s become a man, and his whole demeanour undergoes significant changes.

I’m going to be querying his story as adult historical, though I still might try it as YA with a few agents who seem to be interested in serious historical YA, not shallow period pieces like The Luxe and Vixen. I actually feel pretty damn happy after coming to the conclusion that this book reads more like adult than YA. I’ve always considered myself a writer first and foremost, and then a historical writer. Many of my characters happen to be, or at least start out as, young people, but I never particularly defined myself as writing specifically children’s or young adult books. I kind of miss the days before books were so pigeonholed into age-based categories.

I also came to the decision to market my first Russian historical novel through some kind of indie or e-publishing sometime this year. 31 January marked 20 years since I began the first draft, and I already marked ten years since finishing the first draft back on 26 August 2011. Because of the length, complexity, and numerous characters and storylines, I just came to the conclusion that it might be better-served in that venue. But first, I need to do a bit more editing and rewriting.

Ideally, I still want very much to be traditionally published, and will still pursue querying my much-shorter historicals. I just don’t want to sit on what I feel to be a very strong manscript for like ten years while waiting to establish myself as a respected published writer who’s deemed worthy of publishing something so long.

I’m also still looking for critique partners or beta readers, but it’s really been difficult to make connections when the vast majority of the people I’ve met in the writing blogosphere are writing decidedly different genres, and with a much more modern style.